The Great Wherever - Camille and Gabrielle conspire
by 5aira
Summary: Gabrielle Danton is pregnant with her fourth child. Louise Gely, who lives downstairs has brought her fiance to meet the Dantons and their friends. After a difficult start Gabrielle has developed a friendship with Camille.


The Great Wherever … Chanson Du Depart

Insufferably smug, but very young, they sit on Gabrielle's sofa exuding the complacent air of the almost betrothed; Louise Gely and Claude Dupin; Louise is intending to introduce Claude to Citizen Danton and two of his close friends, both of them high ranking deputies, who will undoubtedly be eager to help the brilliant young administrator complete his meteoric rise in government. If she were a little older Louise might question her wisdom in bringing him; Gabrielle has shown little enthusiasm for Claude, Citizen Danton even less, Citizen d'Eglantine calls him 'The Infant Prodigy' and Citizen Desmoulins !... well….

Gabrielle has powerful reasons of her own for seeking to stop the match. At first she refused to entertain such thoughts; forcing them back down into the seething chasm of nightmare which has spawned them. But these reasons have a life of their own, an urgency which gives them power over Gabrielle. Let her share them with you and perhaps you will find some compassion for the former Gabrielle Charpentier.

Gabrielle's boys love Louise; they have never known a time when she was not there; comforter; playmate; big sister; and soon, in Gabrielle's world of mingled hope and dread, a surrogate mother.

So Gabrielle is intending that Louise should take her place. But where then is Gabrielle going? Who can be sure? But she senses the changes in her body; the weight of fluid dragging her down; making it harder to catch her breath; impossible now to chase after her sons. Gabrielle does not expect to survive this pregnancy and all her efforts now are directed at creating order when she has gone. Louise is to be the surrogate keeper of Gabrielle's menfolk.

But, you may protest, three babies! And Louise is only sixteen!

From the faltering stammer of its quickening Gabrielle is sure that the little one, as yet unborn, is coming with her. They will be a comfort to each other in the Great Wherever. Together they will be able to hunt out the other little wanderer, Gabrielle's never forgotten first born. Or perhaps he will be waiting for them; Gabrielle fervently hopes he has not been searching for her all this time, lost and uncomprehending. But who can tell about the Great Wherever?

At last the deputies arrive; Georges-Jacques, noisy and jovial as ever, brushing the top of Gabrielle's head with his lips; Fabre, hollow cheeked now, but eternally theatrical, bowing effusively to the guests; and then Citizen Desmoulins…..

Impossibly elegant and androgynous; it is many years now since he had difficulty affording a decent wardrobe; his unlaced shirt, the finest white lawn cotton, reveals a glint of silver at his neck. A knotted green ribbon attempts valiantly to restrain the familiar cascade of curls. Once Gabrielle would have shrunk from the sight of him, dressed like this, sloping into her drawing room behind her husband. Things are different now though; nearly as good as Louise with her children, Camille is a dearly loved friend. He sits next to her on the chaise longue, not unnoticed by G-J, and she feels him leaning against her; who is comforting whom here?

As if by a prearranged signal Georges-Jacques and Fabre begin to bombard the infant prodigy with a host of questions he is ill prepared for. Two senior deputies intent on cross examining him; could anything be worse?

Well yes, because the third deputy has chosen a role here too, just look: Camille loosens his shirt a little more, a bit too much perhaps? He then proceeds to perform a sort of erotic descant to the interrogation. A descant starting with a sibilant '_so wise, so young'_ and continuing in a series of shivers, gasps and moans in response to every increasingly feeble response of the infant prodigy.

As every shiver edges Camille closer to Gabrielle, Claude Dupin grows more uncomfortable and Louise Gely more and more dissatisfied with Claude's performance. In fact, Gabrielle notes with some amusement, Louise seems almost hypnotised by the gleam of silver at Citizen Desmoulins' neck; her eyes, ineluctably drawn to the milky pallor of his skin, follow the open laces of his shirt. Gabrielle is satisfied; her intuition tells her that the match will not now take place.

She places one hand on her belly, keeping faith with her future travelling companion, but the other arm steals gratefully round Camille's shoulder, teasing Louise by playing delicately with his locket and beginning to slide her hand below his shirt.

It is with an icy chill that she realizes she can feel the sharp angularity of every single bone beneath his skin; his heart is skipping and racing under her soft fingers as if trying, and failing to catch up with itself. Surely Camille is not to accompany them into the Great Wherever? Intuitively attempting to transmit some of her soft flesh to his wasted body Gabrielle gently draws his head onto her breast; there is no resistance, Camille is forever in search of mothering, but as he rests his head he can hear the rattle of fluid in Gabrielle's lungs.

Outside in the Great Wherever Gabrielle's little wanderer toddles uncertainly a few steps closer…..his lonely sojourn is drawing to its close….


End file.
